Today we stumbled upon a commercial from a few weeks ago for the four Star Trek series which will air or stream this year.

It's potentially slightly interesting to Star Trek fans just for tiny snippets of new footage but also includes a curious anomaly.

No, not of the spatial variety.

Well, actually it might be but in the volumetric sense rather than the typical sci-fi one.

The commercial features Patrick Stewart, Anson Mount and Sonequa Martin-Green out of uniform.

As themselves.

Patrick opens with:

We have all gazed up at the night sky and wondered, what's out there?

The universe. Infinite and unknowable.

That is, until you gather a few souls brave enough to explore it.

Star Trek.

It continues with a lovely, hopeful, upbeat description of the franchise, which many feel that Discovery and Picard abandoned.

Regardless of how you might feel about where Star Trek is right now, their description is exactly what Trekkies are hungry for and hearing it is satisfying.

But visually there's one anomaly.

Rather than Kate Mulgrew there to represent Prodigy there's a screen with her animated image as holographic Janeway.

Younger and slimmer.

You might recall that Carrie Fisher was required to lose weight for the recent Star Wars films.

Carrie reveals she was pressured to lose more than 35lb for the new film

They don’t want to hire all of me – only about three-quarters! Nothing changes: it’s an appearance-driven thing. I’m in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say get younger, because that’s how easy it is.

Easy as pie with animation.

Star Trek: Prodigy is available now on Paramount+ and Binge, with more episodes releasing later this year.

Star Trek: Picard season 2 premieres on March 4 on Amazon Prime.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres on May 5 on Paramount+.

[ Main Image: Holographic Janeway in Star Trek Prodigy. Credit: Paramount via YouTube. ]

References

Good Housekeeping (December 7, 2015). ‘I’m in a business where the only things that matter are weight and appearance’. 

Universo Star Trek (February 20, 2022). New Scenes Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 01 - Spot Paramount+ 2022. YouTube.